Engineer Thinks the Time Has Come for a Rolling-Stop Sign

Soon, Alan K. Uke of Rancho Santa Fe hopes to be dealing with the Truly Big Stuff: war and peace, taxes and the price of groceries.

He’s on the verge of chasing the Republican nomination in the new 49th Congressional District.

He’s got a resume that makes Republican kingmakers sit up and bark: founder of a diving gear company in San Marcos that employs 100 workers and exports to 42 countries; member of the (GOP) Golden Eagle Club; board member of the St. Vincent De Paul Village and of the San Diego Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

He’s also 39 and willing to devote a good measure of his (considerable) intelligence, energy and personal finances to the campaign.

But that’s for tomorrow. Today, Uke is talking traffic.

He believes (fervently) that he has invented a traffic sign whose time has come: A Rolling-STOP sign, which would be a midway between a full STOP and a YIELD.

“I’m frustrated how long it takes to get anywhere,” he says. “I’m tired of fighting these stupid traffic signs that aren’t needed for safety.”

Uke’s sign would be an inverted triangle with the warning: YIELD 5 M.P.H. Cars would have to slow to 5 m.p.h. before proceeding.

For intersections that don’t need a STOP but need more than a YIELD.

Uke (who left UC San Diego a few credits shy of a mechanical engineering degree) does not do things halfway. He’s got 15 patents for scuba diving gear.

He figures his sign would save gas, decrease asbestos in the air (from brakes), and allow Americans to be more productive workers and/or more devoted family members, all good Republican virtues.

He’s got the numbers: 1 minute per day trapped behind unneeded STOP signs, times 240 work days per year, equals 4 lost hours.

“We would restore four hours a year to people that they would not have to be in their cars,” he said.

In January, he goes to Redding for a meeting of the California Traffic Control Devices Commission. If California can pioneer the right turn on red, he sees no reason the Rolling STOP can’t start here, too.

“I’m an engineer and this is all neat stuff to me,” Uke said. “It’s a challenge. I’ve got tons of ideas.”

Only in the Movies

Go for it.

* Filming in San Diego of “Mr. Jones,” starring Richard Gere and Lena Olin (he’s a patient, she’s a shrink) and directed by Mike Figgis (“Internal Affairs”), won’t begin until next month.

But locals are already talking about a shoot that may be the most ambitious ever tried by a film crew here.

A possible opening scene may have Gere cycling across the Coronado Bridge, with aerial shots and a battalion of extras.

Negotiations are under way with Caltrans.

* Remember that “controversial” proposed mural by San Diego artist Mario Acevedo Torero?

A minority child sitting in a large outstretched hand, encircled by flags of all nations, with the San Diego skyline in the background.

The County Board of Supervisors found the mural too radical/unsettling (there were also money problems) to be painted on a wall of the downtown County Jail.

But San Diego Councilman Bob Filner and his wife are using Torero’s original sketch for the mural on their Christmas cards, with the message “Peace on Earth.”

The fourth year Filner has used a local artist for his card, a spokesman says.

Cawthorne’s Day in Court

After the Broderick verdict last week, Channel 10 commentator Herb Cawthorne blasted both the court system and the district attorney’s office.

If Broderick had been poor or minority, Cawthorne said, the court and D.A. would have been tougher on her.

This week Cawthorne gets a chance to see firsthand how the court system works.

A hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Department F4 of Family Law Court in the matter of the $4,550 in back child support that Cawthorne’s ex-wife says she is owed.

The district attorney’s office, acting on behalf of the Oregon Child Support Agency, is seeking to have Cawthorne ordered to pay up.

Cawthorne says the dispute stems from when he was out of work and short of money, and that he has since resumed making his regular monthly payments.

He adds that the courts are unfair to fathers when it comes to child support.